Breaking Through (Book 2 of the SEAL TEAM Heartbreakers) (2 page)

Brett dragged the body into the alley and rolled it flush against the building, concealing the rifle behind it. He then wiped the KA-BAR clean with the tango’s shirt and replaced it in its sheath.

How long before the man would be missed?
Not long enough.
Got to get moving.

Two clicks sounded in his ear. Derrick had made it inside. So the guy had been aiming at him. Strong Man needed to practice his stealth skills.

Watching for any movement on the roof, Brett eased from the alley and worked his way from shadow to shadow toward the building. He paused behind a small patch of scrub that offered only the minimum of cover, then broke into a full-out run and zigzagged across the last twelve feet, every inch of his body tensed for the strike of a bullet. Reaching the building, he flattened himself against the side of the structure. No cry of alarm followed. No one opened fire. He drew a deep breath and shook off the adrenaline humming through his body.

He secured his rifle sling over his shoulder, gripped the bottom of the window, braced a foot on the rough concrete, and boosted himself up and into the opening. His pack dragged at the edge of the frame, making a soft sound like a zipper being worked. He froze, listening for any enemy response. Nothing. He wiggled gently, disengaging the pack, and climbed through.

Although the lower floors remained pitch-black, his NVGs illuminated everything in green. Two tables separated by crates sat against one wall with rifle parts lined up carefully across them. The faint odor of machine oil hung close.

He paused to click his COM system four times and moved on. He approached the door, leaned forward, and pressed an ear to the panel. Silence breathed back at him from the hall on the other side. Another series of clicks signaled Bowie’s entrance into the building.

Brett eased open the door a slit and peered out. All clear. Sliding silently through the opening he turned left, hugging the wall as he crept down the hall. The last room on the left was his target. He pressed his ear to the door. Emptiness pinged back at him. And no light shone from beneath.

Twisting the knob, he eased into the room and shut the door. Long rows of wooden boxes lined the interior. One lay open and next to it, a pile of packing material. Brett approached it.  AK-47’s, lying in neat stacks and cushioned by straw, filled the crate.

Bingo.

He set aside his rifle and shook free of his pack. Drawing a deep breath, he worked the straps free and opened the flap. He pulled out his supplies and laid them on the floor in neat order. Moving quickly, he positioned plastic explosives against the interior weight-bearing walls. When set off, they would collapse the building inward and bury anyone inside. Just in case, he decided to create a circuit of charges with DET cord around the boxed weapons. He had just finished the last circuit when the door swung open.

Every nerve in Brett’s body jumped to high alert. He grabbed his Sig Sauer sidearm and jerked it free.

Recognition momentarily drained the strength from his arms and he lowered his weapon.
Shit.
He’d almost blown away one of his guys. What the fuck was going on? Hawk’s and Bowie’s charges were already set, Doc’s, too. He’d heard the clicks.
What the fuck was Derrick doing here?

Derrick pressed a finger to his lips and rested his ear against the door listening. He gave the all clear and signaled for him to hurry.

Brett nodded, thrust his pistol into its holster, and turned back to the task of arming the charge.
Derrick shouldn’t be here.
This change in plan put them both at risk.

Just get this done and get the fuck out of here.

He checked his watch, then set and switched on the timer. Sensing quick movement to his right, he jerked to the left.  A metal gunstock slammed into the side of his head with the force of a baseball bat, tearing the NVGs from his face. Blackness crashed over him.

Three months later

CHAPTER 1

“It isn’t aphasia.”

From his seat across the desk, Brett looked up. Dr. Stewart’s expression offered no clues as to how he should feel about his announcement. The doc’s normal hangdog expression remained the same.

“That’s what I was told after I woke up from the coma, sir.” Brett said when the doc continued to wait for a response.

“Any time there’s an injury to the brain, and there’s a problem with speech, there’s a list of things it can be. Aphasia is only one of them.”

Brett nodded. “What does this new diagnosis mean?”

“Well, Ensign, it means you’re not going to receive a medical discharge from the Navy. Yet.”

Medical discharge.
Medical discharge!
The blood drained from Brett’s head. Nausea hit him like he’d been kicked in the nuts. “What do you mean
yet?
Nobody said anything about a discharge. I’m getting better. I’m working my way back.”

“That’s why we don’t believe you’re experiencing aphasia. If you were, you wouldn’t be progressing, you’d be learning to cope.”

A surge of adrenaline kicked Brett’s heart into overdrive. “Then what the hell is it?”

“Your speech pathologist, Miss Myers, thinks the blank spots in your memory are stress-induced rather than physical.” Captain Stewart rose to his feet, moved around the desk to lean against its edge, and crossed his ankles. “When you were in elementary school or middle school, did you ever pull a blank during a test?”

“Sure. Everybody’s done that at one time or another. But the information eventually came back to me.”

“But with aphasia, it wouldn’t, Ensign Weaver. You’d learn coping mechanisms to help you come up with a substitute, for the word you couldn’t remember, but you wouldn’t ever recover that word in that instance. You might substitute another one totally unrelated to what you were trying to say. To make explaining simple—if you were trying to think of the word dog you might call it … ice cream, though you knew up here,” he tapped his temple, “exactly what a dog was. The correct word just wouldn’t route itself to your speech center.”

The tight feeling banding Brett’s chest began to ease. “I don’t do that. I can’t think of the word at all and have to concentrate on it, circle it, until the original, or a substitute that makes sense, occurs to me.”

“And we all do that. You just happen to do it more frequently than the rest of us. Because of all the behaviors you exhibit inconsistent with aphasia, your wide-ranged articulation in particular, we’ve changed our diagnosis. We believe you’re suffering from PTSD.”

Bullshit! Brett shook his head. “I’m not stressed now. I’m home, I’m with my family.”
I’m awake for the first time in a month.
“And I’m still doing this shit.” He heard the anger and frustration in his own voice and drew another breath. “Sorry, sir.”

Doctor Stewart’s long face became serious. “How angry are you about being denied the opportunity to train and deploy with your team, Ensign?”

Brett eyed the doctor. Was this a test? A trick? If he admitted to his anger, would it affect his final prognosis? Could they kick him off the team for this shit?

Stewart shook his head and took the seat next to him, putting them on a more even keel. “You can’t ignore the physical and mental trauma you endured in Iraq. It isn’t going to go away.”

Everyone always pussyfooted around what Derrick had done. Having one of your best friends try to kill you—
twice
—was a little more than just a trauma. It moved way beyond trauma right into …
Shit!
Maybe if he thought of a word that would encompass the experience, he’d be cured.

Brett turned in his seat to face him. “Look, I’m not trying to ignore what happened. I’m dealing with it. And not being able to train, to do what I’m meant to do, is just going to make this thing I have worse. I need something physical to set my sights on. A goal I can work toward, not some ‘
maybe.’
I need to get back to my team.”

“That’s exactly what we want to happen, Ensign. But it’s going to take a lot of work, and a little cooperation on your part.”

Any time these fuckers started mentioning cooperation, they wanted either a quart of blood, or to inflict pain, or both.

Brett studied the doctor through narrowed eyes. He scrubbed a hand over his close-cropped hair.

Okay, think.
Stewart wouldn’t be saying this if he didn’t have a shot at returning to his unit. From the look of things, if he didn’t cooperate, he had zero chances.
Fuck.

“Put me back on light duty at least. I’m going crazy sitting around.”

Stewart’s eyes glinted. “It’s only been twelve weeks since your surgery, Ensign Weaver.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Stewart rose to his feet and moved to sit behind his desk. “No calisthenics and no strenuous exercise.”

Brett suppressed the grin that threatened to break through. “Agreed.”

Stewart continued to eye him, a hint of suspicion in his gaze.

“I’ll have a letter for you by the end of office hours today.”

“Thank you, sir. Now, what do I need to do?”

***

Zoe Weaver stared at the plastic stick from the home pregnancy test. Her shoulders were so knotted with tension the muscles ached.

They weren’t ready for this.

After a rocky patch, she and Hawk had just gotten things ironed out enough to enjoy each other. She couldn’t be pregnant.

Her brother Brett had just come out of his coma. Her sister Sharon was recovering from an emergency C-section and hysterectomy. Derrick Armstrong’s trial was coming up in a month or two, but she could handle that. But this—She swallowed against her rising panic.

She loved Hawk. No doubts—no holding back—she was committed.

He said he loved her. Showed her on a daily basis. But she refused to pressure him into marriage with a pregnancy. The words had to come without that hanging over his head. They had to come from his heart. When he was ready.

A plus sign appeared in the window on the stick. Her breath caught and her hand crept upward to cover her mouth. Was it a shout of joy she was suppressing, or a groan of despair? Trapped between the two, she couldn’t decide.

A quick tap on the door startled her.

“Zoe, you all right in there?” Hawk’s voice laced with concern brought tears to her eyes. She brushed them away.

“I’ll be right out.” She stuffed the plastic stick back in the box and crumpled the instructions into a tight ball. She had to think about what she was going to do. She couldn’t just spring it on him.

He was so observant. He’d know something was wrong if she didn’t pull herself together. Taking several deep breaths, she reached for calm. She tossed the crumpled paper into the trash and covered it with a piece of tissue. She shoved the home pregnancy test to the back of the bathroom cabinet behind rolls of toilet paper and bottles of antiseptic.

She washed her hands, dried them, and, drawing one last calming breath, opened the door.

Hawk looked up from the end of the bed. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I just lost track of time. I didn’t mean to hog the bathroom.”

“We have two.” He shrugged then continued to tie his shoes. “I’ve been called in to base to take an instructor’s place at the pool. His kid is having emergency surgery. They think it’s appendicitis.”

“Okay.” The calf muscle of her damaged left leg tightened as she limped forward and sat next to him on the bed. She brushed back the black hair at his temple with her fingertips. Would the baby have Hawk’s wonderful high cheekbones and dark hair? Would it have his Native American heritage stamped as strongly on its features? Her voice sounded husky when she said, “I hope he’ll be okay.”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine.” He looped his arm around her and drew her in against his side. His gray eyes looked intent as they studied her face. “What time’s your interview?”

Lord, after the shock of the pregnancy test, she’d completely forgotten about her hospital interview. Her gaze darted toward the clock. “Not for a couple of hours yet.”

“It’s a relief your application for your license went through so quickly. Right?”

“It had to be some kind of record. I didn’t think any kind of bureaucracy worked that fast. You didn’t have anything to do with it, did you?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Maybe they just realized California needs a really great physical therapist. And I think Dr. Connelly might have called and spoken to someone.”

Zoe’s brows rose. “How do you know that?”

“Because I asked him to.” He brushed a stray curl back from her cheek. “I wanted you here with me. And now that Brett is back on his feet, I knew you wouldn’t be happy unless you were doing what you’re supposed to do.”

The words ‘
I wanted you here with me’
captured her attention. The rest just seemed to blend into the background. She turned his face toward her and kissed him.

Hawk took advantage and eased her down onto the bed. His hand worked beneath her t-shirt to cup her breast. And when his fingers toyed with her nipple, a titillating heat arrowed down her torso.

“You’re not pissed because I interfered?” he asked as his lips left hers to nibble her earlobe.

She shivered. “No, of course not. I want to be here with you, too.” Her hand slid over the front of his desert camouflage uniform pants and found evidence of what he wanted. She’d never get enough of this, or of him.

But how was she going to tell him about the baby? He’d just decided he could handle a commitment to her, though he could be deployed any moment. If he went wheels up, how would he feel leaving her behind—pregnant?

It would drive him crazy. He’d worry about her. He’d be distracted, and he might not be as careful as he needed to be. No way was she telling him. Not yet.

“If you have time,” she whispered in his ear. “I could use a little added incentive to do well on my interview.”

Hawk laughed. He raised his head to look down at her. “I might need a little encouragement to do well at the pool, too. I wouldn’t want sexual frustration to distract me.”